


Boston

by Cornerofmadness



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-01-25 08:23:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21353167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornerofmadness/pseuds/Cornerofmadness
Summary: Zia doesn't like this duty
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cozy_coffee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cozy_coffee/gifts).

> Original fiction - part of my nano (where I desperately need another organization name for a demon hunting team). Hope you don't mind original work

Marzia wanted to be anywhere but here. No one inside the Beacon Hill home would be glad to see her. Aran could have found someone else to deliver the summons. Hell, Oisín could learn to answer his damn phone once in a blue moon. But naturally he wouldn’t, not if he was having Payne over. His phone would be nowhere near him.

Zia argued that they could wait until the team had more intel before summoning their resident heavy hitter. Her mentor had favored her with a look that suggested Zia was a puppy in need of obedience training. Of course, Zia knew Aran wouldn’t come fetch Oisín herself. Did Aran love him or was theirs simply a comfortable long-lasting friendship with many carnal benefits, Zia didn’t know. All she knew was her second Mom didn’t provide for all his needs and was content to leave him to the not so tender mercies of Payne.

Zia let herself into the home with the key, contemplating kicking her own partner in the business for deserting her on this task. The Guard generally sent out teams of six people, three sets of complimentary partners. Her partner conveniently had to take his visiting grandma around Harvard where she was going to do a talk on her latest book. Seeing as James had never been there to her knowledge and that Grandma was a highly capable woman, she could only conclude James wanted nothing to do with what was behind this door.

At the best of times, where Oisín Quirke was concerned, Zia was reminded of Lady Caroline Lamb’s description of Lord Byron: mad, bad and dangerous to know. Disturbing him while he was getting his freak on wasn’t likely to end well. That in mind, she unlocked the door.

“Coming in!” she bellowed, loud enough to echo. Never let it be said she had anything but the Italian version of an ‘inside voice.’ “Guardian business.”

No one answer intelligibly but a loud groan sounded. That could be pleasure or pain with Oisín. She sauntered into the back room: nothing. Gritting her teeth, she climbed the stairs. Payne lounged against the door frame waiting for her, a violet ray wand in hand. She arched an eyebrow at Zia, a smirk playing in the corners of her raspberry slashed lips. She pointed into the bedroom with the wand.

Oisín lay shackled to the head board, still aroused and hopeful. Sweat slicked his hair, whose color and luster would make an Irish Setter jealous. His chest heaved. “Damn it, Marzia. This couldn’t have waited?”

“True story, I told Aran it could, but she insisted. Did you piss her off again?”

He snorted, rattling his shackles. “Who knows with women.”

Mistress Payne frowned, stalked over and zapped his nipple with the pointy end of the violet ray wand, electricity arcing between the glass tip to his flesh. Oisín bucked, moaning.

“Humans are weird?” he tried again when he could catch his breath, earning himself another shock.

“Payne, if I have to see him finish, I’m using that wand on you,” Zia threatened, even though part of her was thinking she’d enjoy seeing it. Damn it, his magic was affecting her. 

Payne shrugged. “I’m good with both ends of the wand.”

Zia snickered. “Noted. And you, Quirke, can you stop being a pervy gean cánach, for a second?”

“I _am_ a pervy gean cánach, so no.” He grinned.

Zia rolled her eyes. The gean cánach, the ‘love talkers,’ were a highly sexualized type of fae, but they had a lot of magic besides spewing sexual pheromones everywhere. Most Guardian teams had some kind of fae or other supernatural working with them. Oisín Quirke was highly placed, a royal bastard and just plain old-fashioned bastard when he felt like it. “Well hurry up already, get your pants on and get to the meeting room. Aran tried calling you for like a half hour already.”

Payne rolled her eyes and packed away the electric sex toy. 

“Hey, she did say I could finish first,” Oisín protested. 

“I said hurry it up. We think we have a Dearg-due on the loose.” 

Oisín thinned his lips, suddenly all business. “Dammit that’s not good. Get back to Aran. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” 

Zia nodded. He’d probably be there before she could fight through Boston traffic. He’d magic his way over. She ran down the steps and out the door. The Dearg-due, the red blood sucker demoness, could be a tough fight but it was good Oisín was on his way. She was a pretty heavy hitter herself magically, but she was human. The Dearg-due didn’t like fae blood so Oisín would be their shield. Too bad about his afternoon. She’d be hearing him whine about it for days. She might feed him to the Dearg-due just to hush him up. It wasn’t like the Dearg-due could actually do him much harm

Zia grinned. That might be worth the hardship this case was going to cause. Hard or not, it was her job and she took pride in doing it well. She was up to the task.


	2. A night in Faolan's life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point I'm just housing these fragments here because they've been lost 3 times and I'm diversifying where they are. This is a rough draft originally posted to 12 days of FicMas in 2018. 
> 
> Warning - Drug use, mentions of child abuse, mentions of prostitution

Faolan staggered through the park trying to ignore the pains making themselves known. He wondered if he could tell Madison about what he’d been put through and hopefully she would be agreeable to not make him dates like the one tonight. He didn't mind a little pain, enjoyed it even, but this had been over the top. At least his date tipped generously, Faolan patted the pocket in which the heavy package of heroin rode. His pain bought him a few days of not needing to worry about where his next fix was coming from.

Something rustled in the brush, making the hair on his arms stand up. Faolan glanced around, spotting nothing but his head swam between jonesing and the blows he'd taken from his violent date. A pack of psychos could be sneaking up on him, and he'd never know. Part of him wondered if he even cared. A different psycho had ruined his life long ago. The only thing tragedy left him was a hollowed out life and a fleshy shell he was too afraid to leave. If someone ended it for him tonight, what would he really have lost? Would Sorcha, his sister, cry for him? Did she think about him at all? Would she even know if someone destroyed him? Maybe. His prints were on file with the police if nothing else. Someone would send word to New Hampshire. At least one of them was thriving in spite of what they'd been through. Sorcha tried to save him but Faolan doubted anyone could.

From around a bend in the park, three women ran past him. Faolan stumbled aside, nearly colliding with the woman in the lead. Joggers? Well, some did run at night but they didn't look like joggers. They swiveled their heads fast as they ran as if they were hunting something. They didn't look scared enough to be running from someone. One of the women was over six foot and blond like a Valkyrie and her partner was only a few inches shorter with walnut hair swept back into a tail. Their third companion was a rail thin biracial woman with her hair left natural and long, bouncing as she ran. They seemed like an unlikely bunch, and they stared him before tearing off.

"What was that about?" he asked the air before deciding he didn't give a damn. He hurt all over, and all he wanted was to get home. Another strange noise distracted him from the aches in his body. Faolan glanced around but nothing else stepped out of the gloom. 

In spite of that, feeling like eyes were on him, he picked up the pace, half jogging by the time the edge of the park loomed in the distance. His squat rested another few blocked away over broken, dirty sidewalks. The faint clean smell of the park faded quickly, and the stale industrial scent invaded his senses. He was almost home.

Home was a loose term for it. Faolan didn't know when it had been abandoned but he and his kids had moved in about a year ago. In this area, the houses huddled together not far from abandoned warehouses. Once upon a few generations ago, business boomed in the area but these houses had always been bad, cheap dwellings for the poor workers. Faolan had chosen the house he squatted in because the house next to it had tumbled down, not livable, and to the other side was the corner. The houses here were so close you could stand between them and touch the walls or so it felt. His selection of this building made it feel more private.

Inside his abandoned home, there were, at any time, a half dozen street kids, he looked out for. Someone needed to, and in spite of his own shitty life choices, Faolan felt the need to help. He understood these kids. He escaped from a hellish home life too but his flight had been right up a needle into the false bliss of heroin. Only it kept the nightmares away, only it gave him peace.

His home had some nice things about it. He prized it for the working fireplace because Boston got frost-bite cold in the winter. This one still vented up the chimney mostly when they burned what they could to keep warm in Boston’s ridiculous winters. He should round up his kids and make the slow walk to Virginia or parts further south but that was a pipe dream. 

At least hovel sweet hovel had running water that someone hadn’t cut off and had slipped the notice of the water company. Cold showers could happen and that was better than nothing. He had gotten used to living without electricity, and people still adored candles so he was able to get them easily enough. They provided light enough for when they needed it. Firefly, one of his girls, was a reader, and he always made sure she had a candle to read by, and for that she seemed to adore him in a platonic way.

The quietness inside lived up to his expectations. Most of the kids should be asleep at this point but he checked in their room like a worried daddy, a better one than most of his kids had ever had, in spite of his drug issues. Everyone but Cheyenne was in and knowing her, she was out doing things he didn’t want his kids doing. Faolan sold himself to get money to feed everyone so they didn’t have to. He tried to get them to centers who could help them, not every kid who crossed his path could be helped. Cheyenne probably was the latter. He just hoped she’d come home. He’d heard of street kids disappearing lately. He didn’t want them to simply vanish, even if he didn’t know what he could do to prevent it. None of them lived safe lives.

Faolan settled into what passed as his bed, a mass of old blankets and streets stolen from a Goodwill drop box. He hurt so much, which forced him to cook up just a little of his heroin to shave the edge off the pain. As he wanted for sleep, Faolan mulled over the strange women in the park. Who jogged at that hour? They didn’t look like a street gang. He didn’t know why they occupied his mind. He’d never see them again. Only, they instilled dread in him, almost like his father had all those years growing up with such a bastard. No, he wouldn’t think of that man or he’d never sleep. Try as he might to banish the women from his mind, they lingered until restless sleep claimed him.


	3. The Healing Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This would come from much later in the story

Marzia held up a hand to Faolan, and he disinterestedly handed her another San Marzano tomato plant. She watched the half-fae, heroin addict out of the corner of her eye. She’d been given the duty of keeping an eye on the surly young man. Young, ha, she and he were the same age almost, though her boss would certainly agree that they were young.

Zia thought maybe some sun and some gardening might give him something to take his mind off his miseries. She loved getting her fingers into the dirt. She called it dirt therapy. Granted it would take a bigger intervention to help Faolan with his addiction but one thing that would at least help give him reasons to want help would be some sort of interests, something to capture the imagination. He was adrift in the world.

“Why tomatoes?” he asked, handing over another.

“Other than I’m obviously Italian, and culturally I might be hounded for not growing them.” She grinned at him. 

He snorted. “Yeah other than that.”

“I love to garden. I don’t get to do enough of it with my job but it’s not just tomatoes. I’ll put in all kinds of herbs and veggies and my team mates will help keep it all watered. I have flowers too, butterfly and hummingbird attractors. I’d love to put in a poison garden.”

His eyebrows rose. “Should I be worried?”

“With me, always.” 

At that he laughed. “And I’m out of San Marzanos.”

“Give me the Ox Hearts next.”

“Speaking of things that sound like they’re from a poison garden.” His blue eyes actually looked less haunted for a split second.

“They’re sauce tomatoes. As for the poison garden, with my job of killing demons and dealing with rogue fae and the like, having a handy supply of poison is a very good thing.”

“Point taken. Is this going to take much longer?”

“Until we get all the tomatoes in. I love doing this. Have you ever gardened before?”

Faolan nodded, his hair flopping into his face. “I helped my dad every year. Turns out that’s how he hid the bodies of the girls he killed.”

Zia stopped, fingers in the dirt at that image. Suddenly it was a hell of a lot less fun.


End file.
